vendredi 31 juillet 2015

BREAD AND LIFE -- PAN Y VIDA -- PAIN ET VIE

August 2, 2015

Bread and Life

(Exodus 16:2-15;

Ephesians 4:17-24;

John 6:24-35)

Fr. Rene Butler MS

When Maximin and his father went to see the blighted wheat at the “Corner Field,” (my translation of La Terre du Coin), Mr. Giraud’s heart sank. On their way home he gave the boy some bread and said, “Eat some bread while we still have it this year, because I don’t know who will eat any next year if the wheat keeps up like that.”

When we pray for our daily bread, we are asking God to provide our most basic needs. In many cultures, bread is symbolic of survival. One who supports a family is a “breadwinner.” Depriving someone of a livelihood is “taking the bread out of his mouth.” The Bible often refers to bread as a staff, something we lean on, rely on, and punishment by famine is called “breaking the staff of bread” (see, for example, Ezekiel 5;16).

This all comes very close to saying that bread and life are one and the same. So when Jesus calls himself “the bread of life” he is speaking not only of the bread that gives life or the bread that is essential for life, but also of the bread that is life.

In English we might describe a person who is especially helpful, generous, and so on, as “kindness itself.” St. Paul writes that Christ “is our peace” (Ephesians 4:17 - 24), and Jesus proclaims, “I am the light of the world” (John 9:5). Jesus also calls himself “life” in the famous expression, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). He identifies himself with what he gives.

Mary at La Salette spoke of wheat and potatoes. Without these, all the local people, just like Maximin’s father, felt their very existence was threatened.

She drew a parallel between the famine that loomed before them and the spiritual starvation that they had lived with for some time. And she offered the solution to both. Her message is a paraphrase of St. Paul’s words: “You should put away the old self of your former way of life.”

She used the word “submit.” If her people would turn back to her Son—remember, his yoke is easy, his burden light (Matthew)—and submit to him who is our bread of life, our bread and life, giving us what he is, they would truly live.